Do converts to the faith make better evangelists than “cradle Catholics”? Pope Benedict XVI seems to think so. Christians since childhood should “ask forgiveness,” the pope told a group of his former theological students recently, “because we bring so little of the light of [Christ’s] face to others, and emanate so feebly the certainty that he is, he is present and he is the great and complete reality that we are all awaiting.”

But are Catholics “by birth”””or any believers raised in a religious tradition””indeed less-convincing witnesses, or less motivated, than are converts? Do they have a greater responsibility to live up to the tenets of the faith since they have known Christ from their earliest years? And are they a bigger disappointment to the Mother Church””and the world””when they come up short?

Hari Kondabolu was born in 1982 in the Little India neighborhood of Flushing, Queens, New York. His parents, both medical professionals, settled there when they first emigrated from Andhra Pradesh, India.

Pursuing the American Dream, the Kondabolu family moved to Floral Park, Queens, when Hari was 8 and his younger brother Ashok was 6. Ashok Kondabolu now performs as Dap, the hype man in the hip-hop group Das Racist. Hari and Ashok occasionally team up for The Untitled Kondabolu Brothers Project, an evening of improvised comic cultural commentary. “It was not my parents’ dream to have their sons in the entertainment field,” says Kondabolu, “but they couldn’t be prouder. Our parents provided us that freedom.”

Ravi and Uma Kondabolu raised their sons to be proud of their Indian heritage, so it is not surprising that cultural identity is a prime factor in their respective arts.

Hari (pronounced HUH-ree) complains in his set that Microsoft Word spell check always tries to correct his name to “Hair.”

(Before you read the full article, guess the answer to this question: What percentage of public sector employees in Italy have lifetime tenure?).

With only 960 residents and a handful of roads, this tiny hilltop village in the arid, sulfurous hills of southern Sicily does not appear to have major traffic problems. But that does not prevent it from having one full-time traffic officer ”” and eight auxiliaries.

The auxiliaries, who earn a respectable 800 euros a month, or $1,100, to work 20 hours a week, are among about 64 Comitini residents employed by the town, the product of an entrenched jobs-for-votes system pervasive in Italian politics at all levels.

“Jobs like these have kept this city alive,” said Caterina Valenti, 41, an auxiliary in a neat blue uniform as she sat recently with two colleagues, all on duty, drinking coffee in the town’s bar on a hot afternoon. “You see, here we are at the bar, we support the economy this way.”

The Dean of Leighlin Cathedral in the Diocese of Cashel & Ossory has become the first serving Church of Ireland clergyman to enter a same-sex civil partnership in the Republic of Ireland.

The public announcement of the Dean’s same-sex civil partnership and his Bishop’s apparent support for the move is likely to pitch the Church of Ireland into the same battle that has torn apart the Episcopal Church and has the potential to divide the Irish church, sources tell CEN.

In an interview with BBC Ulster, the Very Rev Tom Gordon stated he and his partner held the ceremony in a registry office in July. Unlike the Church of England, which requires clergy who have entered same-sex civil partnerships to remain celibate, the Church of Ireland has not taken a position on the matter.

To read between the lines here: the Treasurer of the Church, like all of the staff at 815, works for the Presiding Bishop, not for the Executive Council. When she tells him to “find money for litigation”, his job is not to ask “Where?”, but rather: “How much do you need?” And in exchange for such due obedience, she protects him from all incursions into his territory by the likes of the Executive Council — who only imagine that they run the show when General Convention is not in session.

No, this is the Presiding Bishop’s show — lock, stock, and barrel. If the Church needs money to fund her agenda, then it will jolly well have to supply it, without any interference from the Executive Council. The Church is extraordinarily wealthy, with over $140 million in unrestricted securities and investments, the gifts of innumerable donors over the centuries. And in recent years it has not been shy about borrowing against the endowment to provide it with working capital for the Presiding Bishop’s ongoing litigation agenda.

Thus it should now come as no surprise to learn that, in a face-off between the Committee’s alternatives and those explored by the Treasurer and his investment manager, the latter prevailed. The headquarters building did not have to be mortgaged; the Treasurer simply ponied up more of the endowment as collateral for two new lines of credit.

An internet security company has demonstrated a new weapon against deeply rooted malware that takes control of PCs and turns them into zombies.

McAfee said it has activated built-in security features and added software to Intel microprocessors, known as chips, to stop cyber criminals from infecting PCs via advance persistent threats, rootkits and zero-day attacks. Infected PCs can be directed to steal private identities, financial data and to send out spam.

If the new technology catches on, the pain of ensuring anti-virus software is up to date and running on a PC could become a thing of the past. It may even pave the way for similar hardware-based technology to be included in other internet-ready devices such as cars, TVs and teller machines.

Readers of the Independent were in for a surprise this… [week on Thursday]: a lengthy apology from that newspaper’s star columnist Johann Hari, admitting to plagiarism and the online harrassment of rival journalists (via pseudonymous assaults on their Wikipedia entries), and announcing that he was off to take a course of journalism training at his own expense.

Allegations of quote-stealing and factual embellishment by Mr Hari have been swirling for months, at first in the blogosphere and then in the mainstream media. I have not posted about the whole sorry saga to date because””at the end of the day””a hack is only a hack, and the press already spends too much time talking and thinking about itself.

But something about the weasel wording of Mr Hari’s apology today sticks in the craw.

…what I propose at our Mass this Sunday morning, on this tenth anniversary of that day, is that as a matter of fact the side of light actually triumphed, as temptations to despair, fearful panic, revenge, and dread gave way to such things as rescue, recovery, rebuilding, outreach, and resilience. The side of the angels, not of the demons, conquered. Good Friday became Easter Sunday. And once again God has the last word.

Perhaps what gives us most consolation would be our young people, our children. Last night, Cardinal Egan, Monsignor Ritchie, and I were in this Cathedral for the commemoration of the New York Fire Department. It was standing room only. There we heard two young people, Ashley and Patrick, recall with immense gratitude and pride their fathers, firefighters who perished that day. There I quoted Commissioner Cassano, who told us that he is amazed at the number of children of those firefighters who perished that dreadful day who now want to be firefighters and rescue workers. And there I met Anthony Palumbo, whose father Frank was a firefighter who died that day, and who is now preparing for the priesthood. This morning I am honored to welcome our servers at Mass, Conor, Aidan, Kieran, and Declan, whose father, Vincent Halloran, was a firefighter who perished that day. Your Eminence, I understand that you celebrated his funeral here at Saint Patrick’s. They are here with their mother, Marie, and we honor them and their beloved father, Vincent. What consolation you give us. They are living examples that God alone has the last word.

O God, who by the preaching of thy blessed servant and bishop Ninian didst cause the light of the Gospel to shine in the land of Britain: Grant, we beseech thee, that, having his life and labors in remembrance, we may show forth our thankfulness by following the example of his zeal and patience; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Heavenly Father, the Father of all wisdom, understanding, and true strength: We beseech thee look mercifully upon thy servants, and send thy Holy Spirit into their hearts, that when they must join to fight in the field for the glory of thy holy name, then they, strengthened with the defence of thy right hand, may manfully stand in the confession of thy faith, and continue in the same unto their lives’ end; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are. Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”

Litigation over ownership of St. Stephens Church in Heathsville and eight other churches that formerly housed Episcopal congregations entered a new phase when the parties filed their post-trial briefs in August.

The briefs followed a 22-day trial at which 67 witnesses appeared and “thousands of exhibits” were filed, according to the brief for the defendant churches all of which have disassociated themselves from the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and joined the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). According to the schedule set up by the Circuit Court of Fairfax where the case over ownership of the nine churches is being tried, the parties may respond to each other’s briefs by Sept. 23 and after that the court may hear oral argument and decide the cases.

It sounds like a good plan, but here’s the real risk: even after this restructuring, Greece ends up defaulting on those new EFSF-backed bonds. Remember, this is a solvency problem not a liquidity issue.

So the EFSF takes a loss, and maybe even its partner, the IMF. The debt is removed from bank balance sheets and put directly on the taxpayers of Europe and, via Washington’s 17% stake in IMF loans, Americans.